Building Blocks of Trust
by LucyLuna
Summary: After the Prowler is seriously injured after a fight with the Scorpion, Gwen takes him to May for help. Part eighteen of My Memories Came Back in the Form of Someone Else. One-Shot.


_Building Blocks of Trust_

* * *

May was perched on her living room couch sipping on a mug of tea held by one hand as she flipped through the channels on her television looking for something interesting to watch with the other. Soon, she landed on PBS which was showing a documentary about Versailles. Sighing in contentment as a calm, feminine voice droned on about the architecture of the French palace, May leaned back into her couch and wrapped both hands around her mug. For a brief moment, she closed her eyes and just reveled in the warmth from the tea in her hands. It was soon interrupted when a rapping started on the room's window to her left. Turning her head, she startled when she saw the masked face of Gwen in her window. The teen's masked-eyes were large and she was waving frantically at May now that she had her attention.

"May, I need you!" she shouted, voice slightly muffled by the glass.

Biting back a curse as she hastily put down her mug of tea and spilled some on her skin, she started, "Gw—"

Only to be cut off when Gwen ducked out of view only to return with a limp Prowler in her arms. "—It's the Prowler!" she yelled.

Going to her window, she opened it up and said, gobsmacked at the sight of the prone villain-turned-vigilante, in the teen's arms. "Lord, what happened to him?" she asked Gwen.

There was a beat of silence before Gwen whispered in a small, choked voice, "Me." Aunt May was going to argue and insist surely this couldn't be the teen's fault when Gwen explained, "We were fighting the Scorpion and I was an idiot and let him box me into a corner, but before he could hurt me the Prowler dropped in and took his stinger to the side."

May wanted to reach out and soothe the girl, but the window's screen stopped her. Instead, she settled for wringing her hands together and murmuring, "Oh, sweetie…"

Gwen shook her head. "I can't take him to a hospital," she said in a slightly shaky voice. "He hasn't been pardoned for anything yet."

She closed her eyes and breathed in and out. Gwen was right – Even if she didn't like it. May was always willing to help out Gwen however she could, but she worried her skills would come up short today. She supposed she would have to try her best all the same. Even if she couldn't fix the Prowler, she might be able to stabilize him enough for them to take him to the nearest hospital as his civilian persona. "Take him to the shed," May told Gwen. "We'll see what I can do for him there."

Gwen's taut form loosened immediately and she even risked pulling back her mask to show May her face and her grateful, relieved eyes. "Thank you, May," she said.

She offered the teen a small smile. "It's no trouble, sweetie."

-o-O-o-

Aaron woke slowly. At first, all he was aware of was a couple of voices – both women – and then it was an aching pain in his side. He shivered next and realized he was missing his top. He tamped down hard on the wave of panic that started to rise over him (it was something he'd learned to do long, long ago. Way before the Prowler, before he started making cat burglary his specialty, before Jeff and him were going around with gangbangers and doing petty crimes. He thought he'd started figuring out how to stop panic from ruling him when Dad left and Mom started bringing around her thug boyfriends). Once he had himself under control, Aaron realized he was still wearing his mask. Thank fuck. It was then the voices started to become more distinct and he made out one woman finishing some remark:

"…awake."

"Really?" the other woman, who the Prowler realized now was Spider-Woman, said. "Shit!" she swore and Aaron turned his head in her direction and caught her pulling her hood back up, covering a head of blonde hair. Huh. It wasn't like he spent a whole lot of time considering her civilian-ego, but he'd never really pictured her as a blonde. Once she had her hood and mask situated, Spider-Woman realized his face was positioned toward her. The eyes of her mask curving with a smile, she greeted, "Hello there, Prowler."

"H—" he began only to start coughing like crazy. The other woman in the room gently touched his shoulder and he glanced up to see she, a slightly older than middle-aged woman wearing glasses, was holding a cup for him to drink from. The Prowler gratefully leaned forward, pushing up the lower half of his mask to drink from it. When he finished, he nodded at her in thanks before he turned to Spider-Woman again and said, "Hey."

"You are a very lucky guy," she said, "the Scorpion seemed to have missed your organs when he stabbed you in the side."

"Oh?" he replied, fingers pulling his mask back down before he let them drift down to the ache in his side. He hissed when he touched stitches.

The older woman in the room tutted at his action and gently pushed his hand away before she explained, "I've done what I can to clean the wound and stitched it closed, but when you're back at your home and in your civvies, you should really stop at a hospital."

The Prowler considered the suggestion for all of a minute. Yeah, no. That would just lead to a lot of questions and bullshit when he wouldn't answer. If the Scorpion hadn't hit anything important when he stabbed him, he'd just rest a bit and maybe hit up the guy he usually did for antibiotics to stave off infection. "I can take care of it," he told her.

"Prowler, I insist," the old woman said in a surprisingly forceful tone, her face stern. "I even told Spider-Woman to get herself to one after I splinted her wrist when she broke it in a fight with Mysterio last year." He was too shocked to bristle, having not expected someone Spider-Woman saw for aid to be so strict about going to doctors. No one he saw when he was in the villain game ever tried to push him to visit a real hospital. Shit, if he was working for one of the mobs, they usually kept a doctor on call in case anybody got seriously injured. He didn't know why, but he figured whoever it was Spider-Woman saw when she banged herself up would be like them. The woman's eyes softened a little around the corners at his prolonged silence. She brushed a feather-light hand over his knee. "My stint as a paramedic some odd-twenty years ago might mean I can patch someone up in a pinch, but it's only a temporary fix when the injury goes more than skin-deep."

"You better listen to her, Prowler," Spider-Woman said, appearing in his line of vision with crossed arms and a glare on her masked-face.

He scowled, annoyed. "Spider-Woman," he growled. He didn't have to do _ shit_. He'd lived through worse without so much as talking to somebody with medical knowledge about treatment.

She sighed when his glare did not waver. Slumping in place, she looked down at her feet and said, "I just wanna let you know I'm really sorry about earlier. I wasn't being serious enough and it ended up with you having to come to my rescue and getting stabbed."

The Prowler caught off guard, blinked. His irritation interrupted, he felt something like an understanding wash over him. She wasn't trying to be a controlling bitch, she just felt bad and wanted to make up for something she was at "fault" for. "S'okay, kid," he told her. It wasn't like he blamed her for what happened with the Scorpion. The Prowler made his choice when he jumped in. He figured whatever the Scorpion threw, he could take, and he hadn't wanted to see the kid hurt. While he wished he hadn't gotten shanked, he was overall content with what happened. He'd done what he set out to do, protect Spider-Woman.

Spider-Woman curled her hands into fists and insisted, "It isn't."

He deliberated for a moment before he said, "No, I guess it isn't." Pushing himself off the table Spider-Woman and the woman had turned into a makeshift bed, he added, "But you learned from what happened and I'm sure you'll return the favor."

She nodded vigorously and stepped forward to offer him back his shirt. "I will, I swear, Prowler," Spider-Woman promised.

Inspecting it before putting it on, the Prowler realized she must have taken the liberty of stitching it up for him. He brushed his thumb over the work. It was actually pretty good. The kid probably sewed close tears in her own suit pretty frequently for this handiwork to be as neat as it was. He frowned. How many times had he seen her play off an injury as nothing when it'd really been enough to cut through her suit and break her skin? He would have to watch her better in the future to make sure she didn't do that shit on his watch. He didn't know if she was a real kid or just a couple years past, but he still felt a little responsible for her. He'd been in this masked business much longer and Spider-Woman deserved to have somebody show her the tricks that would keep her alive as the years went by.

"Prowler?" Spider-Woman called, voice hesitant. "…Is the mending a problem? I just thought—"

"—No," he said, cutting her off mid-sentence. He pulled his shirt on, rolling it down his injured side with care. "We're all good."

"…Really?" she asked after a long, doubtful minute.

He rolled his eyes and said, "Yeah."

"Spider-Woman," the older woman called as she walked up next to the Prowler. "Help me walk him to the street," she said, "I think you two are going to need me to call a Taxi…"

As he wrapped one arm around her shoulders and leaned against Spider-Woman, he said to them "No, I'll call my bike."

"You can't drive it like this, Prowler," Spider-Woman chided. "It won't be good for you and I'm sure it'll be hard with the amount of pain you're in anyway."

The Prowler narrowed his eyes at her, displeased. "I've driven after worse," he told her, his mind flashing back to the time he'd been shot in the shoulder during a heist and then drove clear across Brooklyn to deliver his goods before he got it looked at by the mob boss's physician.

"No, Prowler," Spider-Woman said a little more forcefully this time.

He huffed, annoyed with the kid again. Thinking quick, he smirked when an idea came to him. "_You _drive me where I wanna go then, "he told her. "I'll hang on."

"Prowler…" she murmured.

In spite of the throbbing ache in his side, he struggled against the women to stand on his own. "I ain't taking no Taxi," he insisted, crossing his arms and staring down his nose at the two.

The older woman's expression turned shrewd and she looked between him and Spider-Woman. As the kid sputtered and tried to find an argument against the Prowler's suggestion, she said, "You can do it, Spider-Woman. You and—" she stopped and looked briefly sad before flashing an apologetic look Spider-Woman's way. "Well, you've driven similar bikes before," she finished lamely.

"Not through the city!" decried Spider-Woman.

She sighed and moved to put her hands on Spider-Woman's shoulders. "Sweetie, I don't like it any more than you do, but he needs to get to the hospital sooner than later."

"I…" the kid started only to nod and relent. "Okay," she agreed. Craning her neck to look around the woman and the Prowler she wagged a finger at him. "Don't say I didn't warn you, Prowler."

"It'll be fine," he replied, letting her sharp words roll off his back.

-O-

Some twenty minutes later they came up on the block that was one over from the one his apartment was on. He strengthened his grip on Spider-Woman's middle and told her, "Here." Her head turned slightly in his direction, but she didn't slow. "Pull over here," he said.

"But we're—" she started only for him to say:

"I ain't taking you near my home, kid." Spider-Woman sighed at his remark and began to weave between cars, earning a chorus of angry honks and shouts, but they made it over next to the sidewalk all the same not a minute later. He stood up and let go of Spider-Woman who correctly assumed that meant she had to get off his bike altogether. Settling himself in the driver's seat, he explained to her, "Maybe I'm doin' the hero thing, maybe we're allies, maybe we will be homies later, but now? I don't want you knowin' my home."

Stood half-on, half-off the curb, she said as people on the sidewalk started to gather, whisper, and bring out their phones to snap pictures, "This isn't safe."

He looked down at his front tire and then at the kid. She really was worried, he knew. Spider-Woman was just good like that. "I promise I won't be driving more than a couple of blocks," he swore.

"Prowler!" she complained, leaning forward like she was going to try and take the handles from him.

He leaned himself and his bike away from her. Voice low, he told her, "Kid, I ain't arguing with you." He revved the engine, letting it drown out anything she might try and say. When he finished, he told her, punctuating each word as another phone-camera flash caught him in the eye, "I. Am. Doin'. This."

"…Fine," she relented after a tense silence.

He smirked behind his mask. "Thanks," he said before turning his attention to the street. He was about to push off and join traffic when Spider-Woman yelled:

"Wait!"

"What?" he demanded, annoyed as he looked back at her. There were a couple of small kids, maybe Mile's age or a little bit younger, awing at her back, and thrumming place. It was obvious they were just waiting for her to turn around so they could bombard her with questions. She was, of course, entirely oblivious as she rummaged in a hidden pocket of hers. "Here," she said once done, holding out her hand. "I had our tech-Spider make this for you," she explained.

He looked in her palm and realized she was holding that gadget he'd seen Spider-Man handling just two weeks ago after their impromptu lunch at the diner. "Is this…?" he said.

"It's a goober like mine and Spider-Man's with a couple of little differences," she explained as he picked it up to inspect the thing. "You can reach _ all _of us on it," she told him before leaning over to hit a button on the goober. "But this is what you do to reach me," she explained. "Later," she said with great emphasis as she looked up from the goober and at him, "after you've gone to the hospital, I want you to call me and let me know you're alive." Turning her attention back to the goober before he could bulk, the kid continued, "Careful of what button you hit here, this one will project a mini-hologram of you for me to see."

"Kid," he mumbled unable to find anything better to say once she pulled her hand back and stood up straight again. He was touched. Way more than that. He was downright _ awed_. She'd given him a hero's gadget. One that he could misuse if he ever went villain again. The trust… He wrapped his fingers around it and brought it close to his heart. He would do his best not to break it.

"I figured you'd start wanting to branch out and do your own thing soon," she remarked as she crossed her arms and gave a little, forced laugh. "You having a Goober to communicate and coordinate with when we're doing our own stuff seemed like a good idea and my tech-girl agreed when I asked her to make it."

Finally able to put a semblance of what he was feeling into words, he blurted, "You're too fuckin' good, kid."

She laughed again. It was a little too loud and definitely disbelieving. "This is what being a hero is, Prowler," she said like it was nothing to show him this kind of faith when he couldn't imagine even showing an ounce of it to any of his old associates. "Remember, call me, okay?" she insisted, leaning in to meet his gaze square in the eye.

"Yeah, I will," he agreed with a short glance to the goober.

Spider-Woman's masked face became oddly still a moment before he was abruptly wrapped up in a pair of skinny, but formidable arms. "Be safe," she whispered into his collar bone.

He patted her back and promised, "I will."

* * *

**The Prowler's met Gwen's May! Exciting? How'd you enjoy Gwen and Aarons' later scene?**

**Thanks for reading!**


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